On January 17, 2008 in Armagh, Northern Ireland, the International Centre for Local and Regional Development (ICLRD) in collaboration with InterTradeIreland held its third annual one-day conference entitled "Fostering Co-operation for Local and Regional Development through Cross-Border Spatial Planning." The conference focused on how long-term economic success coupled with high quality of life on the Island of Ireland can be achieved by harnessing the potential of sustainable communities which transcend the border. The conference was opened jointly by Batt O’Keeffe TD, Minister for Housing, Urban Renewal and Developing Areas, and Conor Murphy MP MLA, Minister for Regional Development, and was attended by 143 delegates.
Read about the conference and download conference presentations

October 20-24, 2007
2007 IIUD Board Meeting in Damascus, Syria

A group of IIUD board members convened in Damascus, Syria in October, 2007. They met with Prime Minister, Eng. Muhammad Naji al-Otari, who complimented them on the Institute's urban planning expertise which he stated has had a positive impact on the city.

The Board members also met with the Minister for Local Administration & the Environment, Eng. Hilal El Atrash, who expressed his appreciation to the Board for their support of IIUD staff working on complex urban planning projects in Damascus and his pleasure at having the opportunity to work with Dr. Mona Serageldin.  Several newspapers carried photographs and articles of these meetings in Damascus and a television station interviewed Board Chairman, Ted Raymond.

Mr. Erfan Ali, Director of Systems and Plans at the Ministry and Director of the Municipal Administration Modernization Project sponsored by the European Union, gave the board members an overview of the objectives of the modernization program and the projects launched in 6 cities, including Damascus. Dr. Abir Arkawi, Professor of Architecture at Damascus University, gave Board members a tour of the Old City of Damascus and arranged a visit to Palmyra and the Krak des Chevaliers.

As part of the Institute’s research on migration and remittances in Latin America, IIUD staff members, Alejandra Mortarini, Christa Lee-Chuvala and Carolina Morgan, are in the process of conducting one-on-one interviews and focus groups with migrant women from El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia and Ecuador who are currently residing in Boston. The in-depth interviews cover topics related to quality of life, employment, housing and remittances, with the purpose of gathering information to design and propose support programs for migrant women and their families.
Read about the LAC migration study

As a supplement to its State of the World Cities Report, UN-HABITAT is preparing its first State of African Cities Report. IIUD Vice President Mona Serageldin has been asked to contribute to the report and is preparing the North African section with staff members Christa Lee-Chuvala and Erick Guerra. The report will inventory and analyze existing and emerging trends in human settlement patterns across the African continent

June/July, 2008
Summer Internships

Katie Fulton is a third year student in the Honors Program at Northeastern University in Boston. Originally from Tewksbury, MA, she is pursuing degrees in both International Affairs and History and is working for IIUD through Northeastern’s co-op program. Prior to working at the Institute, Katie worked for Parametric Technology Corporation where she trained international employees and managed the internal technical support website.

Jeanne Haffner began her summer internship at IIUD, this June.  Jeanne has been a Visiting Fellow at Harvard since 2006 and recently received her PhD from the University of Virginia.  Her intellectual interests center on urban planning history, theory, and practice in twentieth-century France and the United States.  At the Institute, Jeanne Haffner is currently involved in the research and writing of several case studies on the renewal and regeneration of public housing.

June, 2008
Google Grants Award

On June 27th, IIUD received a Google Grants award that provides free internet advertizing through Google's search engine.  This advertizing will help increase our web exposure and provide a platform for promoting our work and future e-learning programs.  IIUD would like to thank Google for its generous support.

May/June, 2008
Visit to Kars, Turkey

The Institute’s regional development project on Strategies for Sustainable Development of Kars Province, Turkey, is finishing its third year in September.  The Christensen Fund (TCF), the project’s California-based funder, visited Kars at the end of May to meet and review the work of all of their grantees in Kars and to introduce their new regional program officer, Ms. Erjen Khamaghanova.  From the Institute, Mona Serageldin and Christa Lee-Chuvala traveled to Kars the week of May 25^th to participate in meetings with TCF and other grantees and to give TCF representatives a first-hand account of the project’s progress, joined by IIUD’s Turkish team members Ali Kural, Ceren Özgen and Berhan Ipek.  The Institute organized a meeting with the TCF team and the Governor of Kars Province to discuss regional development and TCF’s primary objectives.  The IIUD team also took the TCF representatives to visit Bulanik, one of the villages in which IIUD is developing a pilot project to increase residents’ income.
Read more about the project in Kars

May, 2008
Xenophobic Violence in South Africa

The Institute is working on a Sida-sponsored study on migration, remittances and investment in sub-Saharan Africa.  Post election violence in Kenya has shifted some of the study's focus toward working with migrants living in South Africa. In recent weeks, however, xenophobic violence and rioting have led to the murder of dozens and the displacement of tens of thousands of migrants working in South Africa.

Many migrants involved in the study have fled South Africa to escape the violence. Although the study is continuing, the unfortunate events in South Africa have been a strong reminder of the precarious situation and vulnerability of many migrant groups. Richard Kruger, an Institute affiliate in South Africa, is following events closely. The policy response to the violence will have a strong impact on recommendations for developing programs to help migrant workers and their families secure assets and improve living conditions.

April/May, 2008
Sustainable Urbanization and Development 

Since gaining consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in July of 2007, IIUD staff members have had a number of opportunities to represent the Institute at UN events, several of them high level.  In April and June, 2008, Mona Serageldin participated as a respondent and a panelist, respectively, in two ECOSOC conferences on sustainable urbanization, one in New York and one in Manama, Bahrain. 

In New York, the Sustainable Urbanization in the Information Age Conference focused on the global challenges posed by rapid urbanization and its impact on the natural environment and climate change, covering topics from poverty and inequality to natural and manmade disasters.  Mayors and city officials from six continents who have shown leadership in sustainable urban planning were brought together to discuss their challenges and visions for sustainable growth by 2030.  Mona responded to a panel of Mayors from Bogota, Colombia; Kartal, Turkey; Dakar, Senegal; Newark, New Jersey and Porto Alegre, Brazil. In Bahrain, Mona was a speaker on the technical panel “Providing infrastructure and access to services” at the ECOSOC Annual Ministerial Review Regional Preparatory Meeting on Sustainable Urbanization.  Her presentation dealt with a promoting sustainable urbanization in the Middle East and North Africa region in a number of ways, from slum upgrading to the development of the high-tech sector.  Links to her presentation can be found here.

In addition, Mona Serageldin and Christa Lee-Chuvala recently attended the 16^th Annual Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-16), a high level forum on sustainable development that this year addressed some of the most pressing concerns at the root of the current global food crisis. 

April, 2008
Irish Diaspora Paper

As a follow-up a meeting on Irish Diaspora at the Institute for International Development on April 14, 2008, Mark Boyle and Rob Kitchin assembled a working paper: "Towards an Irish Diaspora Strategy: A Position Paper.”  The paper is available through the National Institute of Regional and Spatial Analysis web site at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.

April, 2008
IIUD Research Fellow

Karen Keaveney, a Lecturer in Spatial Planning in the School of Planning, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Queen's University Belfast, began a two month Fellowship at the Institute in April with funding she received from Queens. She graduated with a BA (Human and Physical Geography) from National University of Ireland, Galway and a Master of Regional and Urban Planning from University College Dublin. Following these studies she carried out research for her PhD on the spatial analysis of rural housing change in Ireland.  Her research at IIUD focused on comparing peri-urban development in the Boston area with rural sprawl outside of Dublin.